


Captured In Passing

by softkimnamjoon



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Photographer, Fluff, M/M, hyuck is pretty ok, im not sure where this fic is going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 14:30:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16494404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softkimnamjoon/pseuds/softkimnamjoon
Summary: Mark Lee’s life begins to take a spin when he fails to photograph a very pretty neighbourhood boy who happened to be walking by.





	Captured In Passing

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my wip for ages and idk what to do with it. Someone inspire me.

Mark has been unemployed now for far too long. He can see the pile of bills sitting on the corner of his desk growing day by day and he could feel the stress pressing harder into his skull. Sighing he picked up his camera and turned it over in his hands, letting his fingers slide lightly over the buttons and feeling the familiar weight hanging from his wrists. He pressed a button to the right of the lense to release it and reached into his camera bag to retrieve his portraiture lense to replace it.

 

Some people may consider his favourite type of photography to be on the creepy side but in Mark’s mind it was eye opening and provided an aspect necessity for all art, besides, it’s not like he showed the pictures to anyone or posted them anywhere.

 

Mark was a street photographer. He took photos of anything he thought was interesting or pleasing, however his favourite thing to do was to photograph people. Just the everyday people who passed his apartment. In fact this hobby or habit of his was the reason he bought this apartment, just one floor up on a mildly busy street. On this level he was just high enough for most not to notice him and his camera but still low enough to easily maintain focus on subjects, as long as they weren’t walking too quickly.

 

If Mark were ever to refer to somewhere as his ‘happy place’ it would be here, on his balcony. There was something about the quiet noise of the street below and the occasional click from his camera that relaxed him and let him breathe.

 

It was also here where he first saw the boy that completely turned his life around.

 

Mark had been sitting comfortably on cushion watching the street and absentmindedly playing with his camera strap, the street had been emptier than usual that day and the days before, probably due to a big music festival taking place a couple of towns north. Mark would’ve loved to have gone if ticket prices weren’t so high and if he had a way of getting there. Unfortunately he wasn’t well acquainted with the neighbourhood yet so it was difficult to find work and even harder to ask people for favours.

 

Suddenly Mark saw a figure emerge at the end of the street. The sky was overcast making the already shadowy sidewalk too dark to make out any details about the person, nonetheless Mark straightened up and pulled his camera into his hands by the neck strap. Raising it to his left eye he looked through the viewfinder and waited for the person to get closer before trying to focus the lense.

 

As they got closer Mark could see they looked to be a boy of a similar age to him. That is about where the similarities stopped. The boy had orange, reddish hair that lightly framed a soft edged face. _A very pretty face_ Mark thought to himself followed by, _don’t be creepy Mark_.

 

He was so busy taking in this unfamiliar person that he didn’t notice until the last second that the boy had almost walked too far to get a well angled photo of his face. _Shit_  Quickly he focused the lense but just as he was about to click the shutter release the boy’s eyes moved up and looked at him through the lense, _fuck fuck fuck_ , in a panic he pressed the button as he slide down to hide behind the wooden panels of his balcony.

 

He clutched the camera to his chest, feeling his heart thumping loudly he listened to the boy’s footsteps fade as he continued down the street. Letting out a sigh of relief he opened the camera's image playback to see what the one photo he managed to take looked like. ‘ _Of course_ ’ He almost laughed when all he found was a blurry shot of a toothy grin and a pair shiny, glossed lips.

 

For a while Mark looked back on the experience in amusement but as the days went on he began to resent the fact that he had been unable to get a proper portrait. He spent longer hours than usual out on the balcony hoping the boy would walk past again, he even waited into the evening when it was far too dark for portraiture and the mosquitos begun to bite. In his mind’s eye there was just something about that boy that _needed_ to be captured, not for the first time he wondered if he was a model. So Mark waited, albeit a bit impatiently but alas, the boy did not appear again.

 

***

 

The next time Mark saw Donghyuck was under very unexpected circumstances indeed. It was a day about as ordinary as a day can be, Mark had been walking to the local grocery store intending to stock up on cherries as they had just come in season and he was rather a fan of the fruit. He had his camera bag slung over one shoulder as he always did when he was out and hummed to a nameless tune that had sprung into his head earlier that morning.

 

As many people are Mark was very fond of walking in sunny weather, he couldn’t help but feel content and at ease as he walked on down the street which is why, you must understand, he was so overwhelmed and taken aback when he spotted his pretty smile boy busking by the local park entrance gates on the other side of the road. It was all he could do to stop himself from causing a scene and probably embarrassing both himself and the boy. Instead, he rummaged through his camera bag and grabbed the face mask he usually keeps in there, slipping it on with his left hand and pulling his hood up with his right he hoped that this was enough for the boy not to recognise him. _If he sees me I’ll never live it down._

 

It was then that he calmed down enough to remember that the boy was _busking_ , meaning, he was performing and _Mark was missing it_ . Mark could barely hear him over the slight but steady trickle of traffic but when he strained he heard a sweet voice sail over the rumble of the engines, he could even hear the occasional strum of guitar. _Wow.._ He was actually.. really good.

 

Realising this was his chance to finally get a decent photograph he pulled out his camera quickly flicking it on and raising it to his eye. Adjusting the zoom he grunted in annoyance when a large truck drove between then, when it had passed the boy had stopped singing and was now looking at him with eyebrows furrowed. _Jesus christ not this again._ In desperation Mark quickly clicked the shutter release two or three times then power walked away praying the boy wouldn’t follow him.

 

Luckily for him he wasn’t followed, however he was walking back the way he came instead of towards the store. Feeling too embarrassed to try and walk back past the boy Mark resigned himself to a cherry-less day.

 

He put off looking at the rushed photos he’d taken for the rest of the week unsure if he wanted them to be focused or not. However he finally was forced to look at them when his sim-card ran out of storage, taking a deep breath he pressed the arrow button on his computer and immediately groaned out loud. Half of the frame was filled with the truck that had been driving past and the boy was half cut out of frame and a tad blurry, especially his hand which seemed to have been in motion in the moment Mark took the photograph. _Even when he’s barely decipherable he’s pretty._ Mark thought to himself before clicking the arrow again.

 

This next photograph was much better, with the truck no longer in frame the boys whole body was visible, although he wasn’t as in focus as Mark would’ve liked it was far closer to his standards than the previous, some small details were visible to a degree. Mark studied the boys expression of surprise and even found himself smiling, _cute_ . Mark leaned back in his chair satisfied that he finally had a halfway decent photograph of the boy, he promptly moved the second photograph into his newly created ‘Pretty Boy - DO NOT POST _’_ folder.

 

The thing about being a photographer, _especially_ one that is struggling financially, is that you can’t really be picky about what and how you photograph things. Sometimes particular stylistic choices or photographs of specific things are on demand and therefore that’s what you need to do. For money. To live. There also aren’t usually a lot of people on the look-out for photographers except for weddings and that sort of thing, hence the whole ‘starving artist’ cliche. Because of this whole complex Mark does actually try to maintain an active online presence. However since he doesn’t post pictures of people without permission, because he’s not an asshole, and about 98% of his photography is strangers it is somewhat difficult to maintain a consistent profile of photographs, somehow he manages.

 

Unfortunately the platform Mark uses to display his works, while popular and good for exposure, takes rather a long time to upload photographs. Over time Mark had developed a bad habit of uploading his photographs then leaving it to do its thing while he uses the time to do something more useful, like take photographs of strangers. So when one day a tired Mark accidentally double clicks on the ‘ _Pretty Boy - DO NOT POST’_ folder rather than the one just below it ( _Primrose Pattern - POST LATER)_ he doesn’t even notice but simply continues his routine, grabbing his camera and a drink before going out to the balcony. Behind him the uploading progress bar makes its way steadily up.

 

***

 

The next time Mark logged back in was almost a week later, he’d been even worse at taking photographs of not human things than usual. All he could think about these days was the pretty busker boy and why he hadn’t seen him since the busking incident.

 

Typing in his password and pressing enter, his jaw dropped when the page loaded.

 

Thousands and thousands of notifications for comments, shares, likes, the whole lot, he usually pulled in a few hundred likes for his photos but never anything like this.

 

Mouth still open he scrolled through the notifications slowly feeling a creeping sense of uneasiness when he began seeing comments like, ‘such a beautiful expression’ and ‘I wonder who the model is’.

 

Frowning he pulled up his profile and immediately felt panic rushing in when he saw what the photograph that was gaining so much attention was.

 

_Goddammit_

**Author's Note:**

> A legitimate mess, if people like it I'll try to keep going but this one really has me stuck atm.
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated <3  
> twitter: [ sknjoonie](https://twitter.com/sknjoonie)  
> tumblr: [ softkimnamjoon](https://softkimnamjoon.tumblr.com)


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